Heaven & Earth
by Kammyh
Summary: Jack has been wandering through space for quite some time now. Will the last planet he had hopped on reserve some surprises for him? Will they be good or bad ones? JANTO CoE-fix it
1. Wandering

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Torchwood, no copyright infringement intended. If you still want to sue bring Ianto back to Jack first.

**Warnings**: Spoilers for basically nothing even though I'll dig straight from canon. Not beta-read and English's not my native language.

**A/N:** I wanted to exploit some other fix-it ideas I had in mind, so I decided to write a one-shot. Needless to say this won't be a _one-_shot, since I decided to use the idea to 'frame' some cute JANTO moments at the beginning that, taking off after the canon, wasn't going to feature Ianto. This is because Jack without Ianto means broken/depressed Jack and CoE did me in nicely enough.

**Wandering**

Jack was wandering on a new planet. He had pleasantly discovered that he had no problem breathing and he liked to count it as a plus, since he had hopped there without checking preventively whether he could survive of not.

If he had died though, he would have welcomed death gladly all the same.

Recently, he had made a habit of putting himself in such dangers, since he had discovered that the thrill of not knowing what was about to happen to him once on the planet was rather amusing. Ok, maybe amusing was still too much, let's say _mildly interesting_.

Truth was that the more he went on living, the less he enjoyed all the new things that happened before his eyes. He felt like he was a distant spectator of the show and, even if sometimes his situation helped him to see the right solution to the chaotic disasters at hand, he wasn't able to make any personal gratification out of it. Not anymore.

Eventually he had come to believe that if he really had to endanger himself, he could at least do it saving someone that actually enjoyed living, but still his decision didn't mean that preserving himself while he hopped around from a mission to the other was a necessity.

Just after his last trial on a submerged planet, half-way across the universe, he had heard about a little planet that had been resisting against some space invaders. It seemed so easy he had actually wondered if he had enough time to lose with that, but that thought lasted just long enough to realise that, yes, he _had_ enough bloody time. So he had hopped quickly on the dried up and devastated planet he was currently wandering on, wondering what he was supposed to do now that he was there.

The sky was dark grey, thick with clouds full of rain and lights, the red earth around him was almost completely deprived of grass and he could not see water sources or houses for miles away. He hadn't even checked the coordinates carefully truth to be told, so there were also high chances this wasn't the same planet he had meant to save. Or it could be, but he had gotten there too late.

"Oh well, starving to death it is. Hadn't happened in a while." He murmured to himself casually, and then kept walking towards no direction in particular, willing to at least explore a bit of the desert before changing his route again.

His hopping system wasn't like the one that moved the TARDIS, it didn't always bring him where he was needed, but if he tinkered with it a bit it still gave him enough chances to keep his mind busy for a while with new adventures on new planets or, if he was lucky enough, it could bring him to instant death.

He'd been walking for several hours, when he eventually found himself in front of the entry gate of a small village. It was nothing fancy and it was mostly in ruins, but it seemed enough for the few refugees that he could see staring terrified at him.

"Hello? Captain Jack Harkness is here, thought I might lend you a hand"

A cat-like person stared back at him with narrow hesitant eyes.

"Are you one of them? You certainly look like one."

Jack sighed in relief having the proof that at least there could be some communication between him and the inhabitants.

"I'm just a wanderer actually. Who's this _them_?" He asked back. Somehow, telling the cat he had done preventive researches on their planet didn't seem a good choice at the moment.

"There'sss no place here for a wandererth" Another local, this time a lizard-like one, hissed from behind the broken wall of what had presumably been something similar to a church. His yellow eyes spoke volumes of his mistrust.

"I'll go away if you want me to" Jack shrugged nonchalantly. "But I've lost everything I loved, so if I can prevent you from having my same fate, I won't really mind. I'll go and take a nap under that burned tree trunk, wake me up if you change your minds. If you don't, I'll be gone in a minute."

In front of the shocked stares of the locals, Jack did just what he had told them, making himself comfortable as he pretended to sleep. He pretended it so well that eventually he ended up actually asleep.

It wasn't as good as dying, but if he considered what usually his dreams brought back to him, it was actually close to it.

***Dreaming***

Jack and Ianto had just come out of the cinema. They had been there to see a comedy and now that the play had ended, Ianto was still laughing as he recalled some of the funniest parts. In a normal situation his lover would have joined too, but for some reason he couldn't erase the dazed happy smile that was plastered on his face.

"What is it, Jack?" Ianto asked after a while, not concerned about the way Jack was clearly not listening to him, but getting the general idea that his lover's mind was elsewhere. "You didn't like it?"

"Oh, no! I loved it, it was brilliant." Jack hastened to answer with an overly embarrassed laugh. "It's just…"

"Just?"

"Oh, c'mon, don't make me tell you! It makes me seem all sappy and idiot."

"No change there then." Ianto teased him, faking a knowingly tone of voice.

"You do not mean what you're saying!"

"Oh, c'mon. There's nothing wrong in feeling romantic…" He reassured him, closing up the space between them so that he could whisper in his ear. "Besides, on you that kind of feeling usually means that you just appear hornier and needy for a shag, don't worry."

"You're horrible!" Jack protested, pouting miserably. "It's not like that's everything I think of!"

Ianto laughed at him and then stole quick glances around himself to reassure himself that no one was around. He took a firm grip of his lover's braces and lead Jack towards himself only to stop them when their lips were just a few inches from one another's.

"But it's everything you think of when I'm with you. Isn't it? It's the same for me..."

Jack felt his blood rush both downwards and up to his cheeks, as he tried to morph the dazed smile in a more lewd one without much success. "Can you hold it against me?"

"No!" Ianto stated happily with a satisfied grin on his face as he let go of Jack braces and resumed their walk, almost a feet in front of Jack.

"Where are you planning to go, you devil?" Jack called for him, laughing but also hastening a bit his strode to even with Ianto.

Two gleaming blue orbs stared at him, as Ianto gently reclined his head just enough to look at him.

"What about my place?"

"Would never say no to such a proposal now, would I?"

"Depending on the time and the place" Ianto drawled knowingly as he tried to put more space between each other.

Jack challenged him with his eyes and then rushed forwards to grab him by his waist and have his revenge, but Ianto quickly run away laughing, as his lover kept following him until they finally reached the Welshman's apartment…

**X**

Jack opened his eyes and saw a very small cat-like alien, probably a child, with a cascade of blond fur falling gently over her eyes in soft waves.

"You stopped pretending to sleep a while ago." She stated worriedly.

"Well, then you know you can trust me." Jack smiled awkwardly at the kid, trying to not make his embarrassment at being caught too evident. "How come you're more worried that I _stopped_ pretending and not that I _have been_ pretending?"

"Because… You called a name in your sleep. Is that the one you lost?"

"Yeah, my lover. A lover extremely dear to me." Jack admitted truthfully. There was no reason to lie to the kid after all. The kitten however simply stared at him confused.

"Lover? Like a wife?"

Jack had to laugh at that. He hadn't even managed to say 'I love you' when the time was right or to make their relationship official to say the least, proposing had been completely out of his mind at the time. Besides he doubted Ianto would have ever accepted to be his _'wife'_.

"Not exactly. He was my boyfriend."

The little girl stared at him uncertain, not understanding yet again the word he had used.

"Like a father?"

"Considering me absolutely not" He told her shaking his head as he wondered whether the child was really too young to understand the concept or it was some kind of cultural gap. "Make it more like a brother or a son… But no, forget it, it's still different… It's less than marriage, but you love your partner all the same and you can't be related. Usually. What do you call it here?"

"Nothing" Another voice interrupted, making the little girl's eyes widen as she scurried away frightened, leaving him alone with the same cat-like alien he had talked to at the gate.

"I'm Karid and she's Astrid by the way. If you really have nothing left, you are allowed to help, otherwise is better for you to just go away."

"I happen to hate blackmails." Jack argued evenly.

"It'ss not a blackmailth" The same reptile-like creature from their previous meeting countered, hissing cryptically him. "It'ss the only way to surviveth."

"If you care for someone they see it and use it against you." Karid explained, noticing the captain's confused stare.

"Mildly telepathic, I see."

The cat-like local nodded at him before continuing his explanation.

"We have managed to organize several villages far away from each other in case of '_emergencies_'. You fall in love, you change village. Reproduction… has been a problem. Add the killings to that and our population is currently less than a ten percent of what it was used to be as far as we know."

"Living hassss been a problemth! We still lack communicationsss among the settlementsss!" The other one hissed angrily at his companion.

"You two… don't get along very well." Jack considered loudly, and both aliens raised an annoyed eyebrow at him, as to say that '_don't get along_' was just an understatement.

Internal divisions during an invasion. Typical.

"Different races, cultures, population etcetera… Marud's is getting the worst of it."Karid explained pointing his paw at him companion.

Marud's hissed a snort at him and then focused back on Jack, who kept staring at their dynamics quite fascinated.

"Ssso? You've no oneth?"

"I've got some friends" Jack confessed. "But they're far away from here. With me I've just my former lover- He's dead. He got killed on a different planet" He hastened to add before the others could complain. "I just… hold him in my heart."

"Sorry" Karid said quickly, realizing the awkward topic they had fallen in.

"Thanks" Jack muttered loud enough to be heard as he bowed his head to stare at his feet, wondering about a good change of subject. "So… Who are you fighting?"

"_They_ invadedth"

"From where?"

"We don't know. They've got powers though."

"What kind of powers?" Jack asked surprised. The race he had been described was supposed to be more or less evolved as the Earth, they surely had to know better than to believe in magic. Besides no powers of sort were mentioned in the small debrief he had been offered on the submerged planet.

"It dependsss. Lightsss, wind, fire…"

"Magic? Do you _really_ believe in magic?" He teased astonished.

"It'ssss not magic, but they are powersss nonethelesss" Marud retorted angrily, understanding Jack's sarcasm and apparently sharing his same point of view on the matter.

"No, it _really_ is magic" Karid confirmed instead, earning a cold glare from his companion. "Some of them have _something_ that as stupid as it seems it works just like magic. It gives powers to their army, protecting them or allowing them to fire elemental attacks."

"Oooh, you got yourself white and dark mages from RPGs! Cool" Jack chimed happily, earning confused and a bit offended stares from both locals.

"Sorry" He hastened to say. "They are games and well, Ianto liked them. Gaming was more our friend Owen's thing actually, but he was more into the _kill 'em all_ kind of games. Tactics were more my boyfriend's thing."

"Your planet seems a peaceful one if adults have enough time to waste it in games" Karid considered with a snobbish snort.

"We…" Jack searched the proper way to put it, but he wasn't sure he could find a way to justify both official and unofficial Earth status in a single sentence. "My team fought hard battles to protect our planet, so let's say that when we could we enjoyed life."

"Interesting point of view. However fighting with the same people you love makes you weak." The cat-like local considered matter-of-factly, clearly classifying Jack as a lost case.

"I can't deny that." The captain admitted guiltily. "I wasn't strong enough on my own and I trusted him with everything… That's how he ended up killed."

"Not exactly what I meant, but close."

"Stop putting salt on hisss woundss" Marud reprimanded his companion eventually and took on himself the burden to put the discussion back on its proper tracks. "Ssso, what'sss your strong pointh?"

"I can't stay dead"

"Fair enough" Karid conceded, not particularly shocked by the news.

"Taking it well, Karth?"

"Seen worse. You too." He told his companion with a hint of distaste.

"Then we're cool." Jack said, enthusiastically clapping his hands and ignoring the squabble between the other two altogether. "When do we start?"

Instead of answering, the two locals lead him in the depths of the ruined village and Jack took his time to admire the 'beauties' the planet had to offer. A stunning lizard-like woman passed by, winking seductively at him, and he followed her with his gaze interested until she turned at a corner, disappearing behind it.

"Try to not fall in love, will you?" Karid reprimanded Jack as soon as they were inside what appeared to be a private home.

The captain simply laughed at his concerns. "I discovered at my expenses that is still too early to fall in love again. I simply like watching something good when I see it."

"Just focus on the plan"

"And what's the plan?" Jack encouraged Karid, but it was Marud that once again took charge of the explanations to prevent a fight to break out between the captain and the overly snappy cat.

With his hissing way of speech, he managed to summarize the latest events quite fast.

Believing that the inhabitants of the planet were ready to surrender, the alien invaders had recently asked for a meeting. Their village and a few near ones, however, were hoping to use the meeting at their advantage to get a chance to take down of the magic-using soldiers, investing everything in some sort of suicidal attack. Jack could currently offer a good alternative to the plan being immortal though, even if there were still few concerns to take into account.

Truthfully, the captain had no qualms about getting killed, but it took him a lot of patience and good arguments to talk _the others_ out of the very suicidal part of their planned attack. Eventually he discovered that it was enough telling them that he needed someone to escort his corpse back to the village if they didn't want to risk the aliens discovering his trick and capturing him.

The fear of earning an immortal enemy seemed to freeze up their craving for death quite well.

After loads of debating that made Jack wonder if there his two new friends were more than just self-appointed leaders, the three of them came to an agreement and, the day after, ended up alone in the middle of the desert.

In front of them an old man stood weakly on his thin legs, whilst hundreds of soldiers were scattered casually behind him, ready to attack at his orders to protect his safety. Almost hidden in the background, after the human wall of the army and barely visible to them, there were five people wearing robes. Three of them were dressed in black and the remaining two in white, but all of them had enormous hats that covered their faces completely.

"You're here to surrender then, good choice. I noticed you got yourself a new friend and his appearance is more normal than yours. Was he the one leading you to reason?"

The two aliens glared at him deeply offended, whilst Jack walked forward angrily. "Normal? Just because they look different from you this doesn't make them less worthy!"

"Here talks the saviour, what are you? Human? Just be a good boy and make them surrender."

Jack snorted at him, crossing his arms on his chest. Being discriminate for being human was nothing new to him, but he had to admit that it had been a long time since it last happened.

"What's wrong with being human!? And who do you think you are to ask people to give up their planet?"

"They submit and I will spare their lives. That's all inferior creatures need to know. You're not an exception, human. Not even a normal looking face makes you more worthy than them."

"You destroyed their planet and then you asked them to surrender. I doubt you simply want them to give you money, so tell me: what's in for them if they accept?"

"I'll spare their lives and they can inhabit one of the deserts. Since their number decreased considerably it should be enough. _We_'ll take the rest. We're many and we need resources."

"You're not _that_ many! Your army's would not even be enough to take down the planet by itself, especially not with the equipment you have. I've seen enough invasions in my life, you are having the upper hand only because someone is cheating for you. Who are those people? Where do they come from?!"

"Our gods are powerful." The old man answered him, grinning at him with a cold and simply evil smirk. "That's why we chained them: to use them better and fully. That's why we need to throw away who stopped being useful and grow new resources."

"You drain their lives up!?" Jack realized astonished. "And what does it mean new resources? Who are those people!?"

"If you're not here to surrender then die!" The king snapped at him and with a quick movement of his hand he gave to his soldier the order to attack.

Unfortunately it was already too late for them. Jack, with his well known talking ability, had managed to buy the resistance enough time for the trap to work.

During the last few days the inhabitants of Karid and Marud's village, along with a few others nearby, had managed to build some catapults in their secrets hideouts, but they had never find a way to take them out in the open air. Moreover they needed time to calibrate them properly and the alien army was always watching their moves.

Now Jack had bought them the time they needed, giving them the chance take advantage of the very rare moment in which every soldier had been too busy with the negotiations to bother about surveying the mountains of an area that was meant to surrender.

As soon as the counter attack began Karid e Marud, almost forgotten by the invaders, dashed forwards among the scattered panicked soldiers, in order to reach the five mages and take them down before they were ordered to support the defence. Jack protected their incursion the best he could, with his gun and some spare weapons he had brought with himself from the planets he had visited.

He had a vast collection of them at the moment, but he sadly had to consider that very few of them were intended for self defence.

As to demonstrate his point, his laser shields were soon out of battery, and he found himself without any other protection than his renowned luck. He took a moment to check on his friends and saw them ready to strike against the mages. The army around them was too scattered and unprepared to endanger them, so he sighed in relief and kept doing his best to keep the soldiers that way even without the protection of his shields and the absolute lack of any other places he could hide behind.

Some of the aliens had recovered, though, and now the shoots aimed at him were each time closer to hurting him deadly. He tried to get away from the line of their shooting, however, as a shoot of energy bypassed his heart, he could easily say that he didn't fear the upcoming death.

It was his own death: something that he would always welcome as long as he was the one welcoming him.

T.B.C.


	2. Of gods and batteries

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Torchwood, no copyright infringement intended. If you still want to sue bring Ianto back to Jack first.

**Warnings**: Spoilers for basically nothing except the obvious (Ianto in CoE-Day4) even though it's strictly canon based. Not beta-read and English's not my native language, constructive criticism is appreciated.

**Of gods and batteries**

***Inside the Void***

Jack woke up on the battered sofa inside their underground hub and groaned as he stretched his sore muscles. He could hear a chair screeching not too far from him as the person who sat on it moved, hovering over him apparently to free his eyes from some rebel strands of fringe.

He could feel the tip of warm and elegant fingers lightly gracing his forehead, reassuring him about being loved and cared for even when he was out of sorts.

"You're late" A low and very familiar voice murmured next to him, sadness and longing engraved in it. "You should have been later"

Jack opened his eyes and, opposite to his companion's sombre expression, he smiled happily at the man.

"I missed you, Ianto" He told him and threw his arms around his neck, bringing them in an impossibly tighter embrace. "It's always too late for me. If I didn't know it would make you unhappy I would just keep myself dying only to stay here with you."

Ianto hugged him back and nuzzled affectionately his neck inhaling deeply the residues of Jack's pheromones, still lingering around him.

"I don't understand how you can still smell this good when your body is not actually here."

"You still smell quite nicely too" Jack groaned in his ear, only to quickly move from there and bite his earlobe, kissing his way along his jaw and then up again to his lips. "Very nice indeed"

They kissed hungrily and desperately, knowing that everything could finish as soon as it had begun. Jack tried to move his hands towards Ianto's tie to undo it, but his lover abruptly stopped him, concern glittering in his eyes.

"Jack, what killed you?" He asked, giving his lover no actual time to answer as he recaptured again his lips with his own only to tease them with his teeth few seconds after.

"I was shot" Jack managed in between the kisses and tender bites, as his hands kept roaming freely along his lover's sides.

"Then there's not enough time" Ianto complained, fighting with himself for self control. "That's not a long death."

Jack giggled at the complete absurdness of their dialogue and then kissed Ianto again. This time it was longer but also less needy as he tried to pour in the kiss all the love he felt for the Welshman.

"I like it longer ones too… Like energy drying monsters or death by blood-loss. Drowning gives us a decent amount of time too, but we need to check the timing better: when I got back last time my pants were wet… and it was not water."

"Oh" Ianto noticed impressed and a little embarrassed, as he remembered how they had made it just in time before Jack had to get back to the livings. "And… are you sure you remember why?"

Jack nodded and beamed at him impishly. "I'm remembering almost every single detail of our encounters lately. Sometimes I wonder how I could forget all this at the beginning or think I was imagining things… This is way fresher and more real than everything I'm used to dream, no matter if the main character of everything is always you."

"You still dream of me?" Ianto asked him, a hint of happiness and amusement seeping through the surprised tone of his voice.

"Yeah, how could I not? Have you seen yourself recently?"

"You nasty man" Ianto teased him in a soft voice, gracing Jack's braces with the tip of his fingers. "What do you do to the wicked tea boy in your dreams?"

"What I did…" Contrary to Ianto's intentions, Jack's face fell at the reminder and he instinctively relaxed under his touch, taking his chance to take refuge in the arms that willingly opened to embrace him. That was the only place where he felt safe, secure and cuddled.

"Yesterday I dreamt about one of our dates, we had been to the cinema… You had that stunning red shirt I loved to see on you and you kept laughing. I guess you were talking about the movie, but I was actually too busy enjoying the sound of your rambling rather than understanding the words."

"I remember that one." Ianto's expression grew even softer as he remembered that evening and his fingers found their way into the soft strands of Jack's hair. "The date about romance and stupid grins. You were completely out of character!"

"I swear to you, that smile really didn't want to go away! I tried my best to focus into being my bragging self."

"I believe you"

Reassured by Ianto's caresses, Jack took his chance to actually watch around himself to stare at the details of the room he was in: the place had a striking resemblance to the Torchwood main area. If he didn't know better, nothing would have given it away.

"Why the hub?"

"It seemed a good idea. It's where we shared the best of our time together."

"You made it very well"

"Getting used to it" Ianto countered shrugging.

"Being dead?"

"Creating proper environment with only a little notice, actually. And about not to wait for you. I'm not stupid, one day you will forget about me and you won't come here anymore. Or you simply won't die anymore so frequently. Both of them would be good."

"I feel good _like this_" Jack protested, pouting at the very idea of not finding Ianto waiting for him anymore after his deaths.

"If you really died forever we would have only the darkness, Jack. We have these fleeting moments to enjoy only because of your 'situation' and a psychic compass on an illusion bracelet."

"Well, I'm not happy about my 'situation', but I'm actually glad I found that bracelet. Never thought it would work actually."

"I feel the same."

Jack looked up at his lover and, despite all the insecurities showing in his blue eyes, he also found the unfaltering hope Ianto had always had in him: hope that even if all the odds were against them something good could be made out of it. They stared at each other uncertainly for some moments, and then they came one for the other, sharing a last chaste kiss before Jack's figure began fading into evanescent glittering dust.

"I'm coming back Ianto!" He managed to tell him before the scorching pain of revival took him away from his lover once again and clouded all his senses with shards of glass that seemed to destroy his being.

"Don't-!"

Whatever Ianto wanted to say though, it disappeared in the darkness of the Void along with him.

***Back among the livings***

Jack gasped for air in front of the surprised stares of Astrid and Marud. Karid on the other hand, from his position leaning on the wall, appeared completely at ease, like he had been watching the weather forecasting and not an inhuman revival.

"So it was true" He commented mildly amused.

"Yeah" The captain sighed and let himself fall backwards again, relaxing boneless on the tattered bed he had been laid on.

"Were you having a nice dream?" Astrid asked curiously. The happiness at seeing him alive helped her getting over the shock quite easily. "White mice with colourful tails dancing together? That's my favourite."

Jack smiled sweetly at the kitten and tentatively scratched her behind the ear, making her purr in delight.

"Nope, my favourite is a certain hot Welshman in a suit."

"You dreamt of him?" She asked innocently.

"I met him. But I didn't make the best of it, because not only I didn't get any coffee, but when I had to come back said Welshman was still wearing his gorgeous suit"

The young girl stared at him unsure, so Jack simply chuckled at his own joke and stared at her kindly. "Just give yourself time to get older, sweety."

"Astrid" Karid butted in, apparently out of the blue. "We need more water and firewood, can you bring them in?"

"Whaaat? I already did that!"

"Astrid, we need more."

The small child rolled her eyes and strode unhappily out of the room, her tail enclosed miserably between her legs.

"She's a smart kitten, you could start trusting her." Jack complained.

"We know, but thingsss are getting more complexth." Marud began, making Jack realise that he was going to get a quite long explanation of what he had missed while being dead.

"We took the mages down, that's how we managed to get your body back at the village."

"It was rather easyth. We thought they were moreth"

"There's a _but_ coming isn't it?" Jack suspected and they both nodded, glancing worriedly at each other before continuing their shared duty.

"One of them was Astrid's mother. She'd been among the missing people for quite some time, but we always believed her dead truth to be told."

"Another one was Lenna, my sister'sss fiancéth. She hasss been found dead three daysss after the invasionth."

"Wait, if they were dead or supposed so… How did you manage to kill them again?" Jack asked, trying to patch together the double explanation.

"As soon as the connection with the king broke, four of them fell by themselves. Looks like they were already drained."

"They fell like puppetsss without stringsss even thought they felt very much alive lesssss than a minute beforeth."

"Their heart was beating, they were flesh and fur or scales… But how could they be?" Karid continued disconcerted. "We checked as soon as we got back and Lenna's corpse is still here."

"Wait. How many people you lost in the war?"

"Hundred thousands."

"So, another question here is: if he's really using _your_ dead, why could he convert so few in number? There were only five mages."

"They were more at the beginningth" Marud supplied helpfully.

"_When_ they became less?" Jack spurred them on.

"As far as I know the number had been decreasing since we separated lovers, families and friends."

"He had a strange glint in his eyes…" Jack muttered, trying to find a pattern among all the random data adding up. "Who had the chance to see that old king at the beginning?"

"We had some mixed delegations at first."

"Astrid and my sister were there and I'm sure that some magessss were related to otherssss of the congregationssss."

"He asked for more after the first and at the beginning we accepted, hoping to break through the invasion diplomatically, but when nothing good happened we stopped sending them. This last one was the first in almost a year of war."

"We can guess he needs to _see_ someone to get information or whatever he needs to bring people back to life then. After this happens, we can guess that as soon as these people get killed they can be summoned at any time… Still some don't get killed, and also he can't use too many at once because you kept yourself away from him lately, so he had to save some of them for emergencies. Moreover you've been at war for a long time, this means he could be finishing his reserves… Oh gods, no!"

Jack stopped abruptly his analysis and quickly jumped on his feet to steal the gun Karid kept on his belt. Before anyone could stop him, he quickly shot himself, falling lifeless at his friends' feet. They glanced at one another worriedly, confused by the unexpected suicide but rather sure that it couldn't be just madness.

Still they weren't much sure about what to do with their certainty, so they left him where he was and simply waited, observing with mild fascination the captain's broken skull recomposing itself before their eyes.

Not much time passed and Jack gasped for air, his eyes filling with tears almost immediately.

"He's not there" He managed to explain with a strangled and distraught voice.

"Who?"

"Ianto!" Jack exclaimed panicked. "He took my Ianto."

"Wait, you said he was de- Ooh shit."

"But then, why not beforeth? You just told Astrid you saw himth. He should have been already gone before you dieth." Marud tried to reason among the worried men.

"I looked at him in the eyes… But I died before you took the mages down, so he still did not know he would need a new set." Jack said, rationalizing the situation the best he could.

It didn't took him much before he finally calmed down, but as soon as he was able to he stared determinedly at his companions. "I need to get him back"

"How do you think you can?" Karid snarled at him, but the captain was already checking his weapons, ready to go.

"Just watch me" Jack challenged them as he secured his gun in its holster and disappeared outside in the faded light of the early evening.

His new friends simply rolled their eyes and bolted after him. When they managed to actually find him though, he was already spying behind a big rock some good feet from the valley where the invaders had parked their spaceship.

"How did you get here in a flash and how did you bloody find them? We never told you where they were hiding!"

"I'll always know where my Ianto is" Jack stated proudly, taking his eyes away from the camp only for a fraction to glance at his companions. Seeing their risen eyebrows he decided he could offer them the actual truth. "My VM can teleport me where I want and it can also locate people thanks to the warmth they emit. This place had the largest concentration."

"It lookssss faulty to meth"

Jack smirked at Marud's offended comment, whilst Karid simply sighed.

"He must be among them" Jack explained, staring at the settlement.

In a far corner of it, three people in tunics and large hats sat completely still, chained to the same bench they were sitting on. Two guards guarded them attentively, but other than those aliens no one seemed to check the area.

"Even if he was there, how do you spell him out of the king's control? We can't use the catapults again, besides we're not even sure that he wouldn't just fall dead like the others."

"I need to talk to him. If only I could get rid of the guards… They are secluded enough to get to them unnoticed"

"We've got these" Karid said resignedly, showing Jack some thin straws.

Jack stared at the candid stripes for a while, some sort of plan already forming in his mind as soon as he realised what they were. To have nothing much left, his friends certainly were resourceful.

"What if we manage to take them by surprise? Could you shield me from the other aliens?"

"Using the asleep soldiersss as a wallth? 'Courseth." Marud conceded and also Karid nodded in agreement.

"Thanks" Jack stared at them grateful, whilst the other two simply smirked back at him.

Still Jack couldn't deny how Karid really looked like the Cheshire cat when he tried something closer to smile, making him eerier than reassuring.

"A god on our side would be good for us too."

Jack refrained to make jokes about Ianto already being a sex god and scanned the area for the safest route to get behind the mages and they managed to follow it unnoticed.

Karid gave the straws to Marud and then positioned himself at a safe distance from the soldiers. As soon as the lizard-man used them to shot two thin arrows at the soldiers' necks, his friend jumped quickly behind them to keep them standing. Unfortunately all his limbs together with his tail weren't enough to make them stand properly.

"H-e-l-p m-e" He mouthed desperately.

Marud was quickly at his side to help him, sniggering at the distraught cat, whilst Jack slipped in front of the mages. One of them was dressed in white, another in black and the one in the middle with a vest half candid and half dark. His instincts lead him straight to this last one and he knelt down in front of him to move upwards the hat brim.

He wasn't wrong.

Staring vaguely in front of him there was the very same man he had kissed in the Void alternate-reality just a few hours before. The only difference here was that this time the man was real and very much alive.

"Ianto…" He whispered, but no answer came from the Welshman.

"Ianto, I'm Jack. Your Jack."

What hadn't done his own name could his lover's one. Ianto's head moved slightly to face him, even though his eyes didn't look like he was actually seeing Jack.

"Jack?" He whispered with the most inconsistent of the voices.

"Yes Ianto, it's Jack" The captain smiled at him, caressing fondly his lips with his thumb and then moving to cup his cheek. "I will save you Ianto"

His declaration of intent didn't sort any reaction, so Jack tried another topic.

"You remember Torchwood, Ian? Torchwood with Gwen, Owen and Tosh?"

Ianto's gaze didn't falter nor it became less vague, but he reclined his head gently to the side, like he was actually wondering about the meaning of the words.

"Where's your mind?" Jack muttered, mostly to himself.

His lover's lips moved though, as he was trying to actually form some kind of answer. "H-… He-…"

"Here?" Jack tried hopeful, and with much relief Ianto nodded.

"Who's shielding you then?"

Ianto's eyes moved over Jack's shoulders towards the middle of the camp, where a high throne had been erected to allow the king to watch the repairing of the ship.

"Can I stop it without killing you again?"

The movement of Ianto's face muscles had been minimal, but Jack was certain that his expression had become definitely sadder.

"You don't know?"

Ianto shook his head and lowered his gaze. When he stared again at his lover, his eyes held the same determined look Jack was used to confide in, his message clear even without words.

"No Ianto, you're not better off dying. I swear to you, I'll save you this time. I already failed too many times, so if you know something, tell me now, because this time I'm not giving up."

Jack could swear Ianto tried to huff in displeasure at his insistence, but the small nod that followed told him he had won. At least for the moment.

Ianto managed to take Jack's hand and to scribble something onto it with his finger.

"You want to write?"

Ianto tried to answer with words, but it still came out strangled, making Jack realize that whatever bindings secured Ianto they commanded his free speech and movements more than his mind. He took out a pen and a piece of paper and offered them to his lover, who began writing with small movements of his hands and like he was barely seeing the paper, but quickly and neatly.

Not much after, a brusque voice echoed not far from the, followed by the sound of feet approaching. It froze Jack, Karid and Marud on the spot, whilst Ianto simply kept writing.

"What are you doing just standing there lazily!?" The irritated voice said louder.

Jack put his hand on his gun for good measure, but Ianto stopped him and then simply stared at his lover's companions. As soon as his eyes were on them, both the locals took not only the appearance of the invaders, but also their very same gear. After the first moment of shock, Karid changed his grip on the sleeping soldier, making him appear as he was holding him friendly.

"No need to worry, we're already here supporting them." He said, patting the long sword now pending from his side. "We finished our work earlier and we had nothing better to do. Watching the gods sounded like fun."

The newcomer stared at Karid for a while and then simply nodded. "Good boy, never leave your companions down. The surprise attack must have taken its toll on them."

"Yeah. That and, well, I was wrong. Watching them is actually boring." Karid answered with forced familiarity, going so far to wink at the soldier, who laughed heartily at him.

"Yeah, you're right. Good for us considering the power they hold. See you around then, I won't report their pitiful embarrassment at being caught."

"Thank you!" Karid said, weaving cheerfully hello until he was sure the soldier was far away.

When he had finally vanished, he took his position behind the asleep alien again, growling in distress.

"That was close. You finished with your frozen fish?"

His words made Ianto look again at him and, without him even stopping his writing hand, magically both locals reacquired their cat and lizard form before Jack's shocked stare.

"Ianto, how could you do it?"

Ianto sighed and kept writing until he eventually stopped. He could only look back at Jack to tell him he had finished, nevertheless the captain understood it, taking pen and paper from Ianto's hands and hiding them in his pockets.

"Now we have to go, but I'll come back Ianto. Don't use your magic if you can, we think this sort of powers might be dangerous."

The littlest hint of a smile appeared on his face and then Ianto looked down at his right wrist and then back up at Jack. The captain curiously pulled up the wide sleeve, only to stare shocked at the tiny dark bracelet that adorned Ianto's slim wrist.

The same one that had allowed them to create the familiar surroundings for their meetings inside the void.

He had bought it some years before and then, the first time he died after getting it, the bracelet had made it with him inside the void. Ianto had explained him that once there he had followed the direction on the compass that came with the bracelet until he found his whole soul.

The bracelet, though, was made to reach the void and connect the dead with another dead before him. It was a sort of GPRS to allow souls to meet again inside the darkness, it was not created for the chance of coming back to the livings. Once in the void, always in the void, so, since his permanence wasn't obvious, Jack had left the bracelet with Ianto.

Now it was the Welshman that reached for him in the darkness through the compass, creating nice surroundings to meet Jack as he waited for him to wake up. They could stay together as long as Jack was dead, and there was nothing else they could ask for.

But now Ianto, who was never meant to leave the void, was back, back with a bracelet that was never meant to leave the void. What did it mean?

Was he a tangible form of Ianto's soul? Had Ianto really gotten another chance at life with a reconstructed body? Still the powers he could use weren't human at all, and all his solutions couldn't explain the bracelet, unless the power involved could revert ethereal existences back to their atoms build beings. That could be a possibility…

Jack was pulled away from his thoughts as he felt a light pat over the pocket inside which he had put the letter, and he saw Ianto smiling adoringly at him before his eyes moved behind himself, towards the route they had came from.

"I'll go and then I'll read it." Jack said with a small smile, and then closer the distance between the two of them to kiss him fully on the lips.

He could feel the slight shock of his lover's frame as their lips connected, still soon Ianto relaxed, until he actually felt him responding. He deepened their kiss a bit more, allowing his hands to gently caress Ianto's neck and then bury themselves in his hair.

"I love you" Jack muttered as his tried to convince himself to separate their locked lips.

It was strange how different alive Ianto felt under his touch, no matter how frozen it was the response he was allowed to give. He had grown used to fool around with him in the alternative reality inside the void: it was all he was allowed to have, so he had accepted it enthusiastically.

He wasn't really scared of going back to that time, because if Ianto had the bracelet, even if he didn't manage to save him he knew that he could find him again… but alive Ianto felt so good and overwhelming…

Eventually he pulled away and looked down at his lover's sad eyes, before Ianto bent his head down on his own volition to make Jack lower the hat brim over his eyes.

As soon as he had finished Jack took a deep breath and then looked behind himself at his friend. "Let's go."

Karid and Marud counted to five before letting the sleeping soldiers go and rush up towards the mountain after Jack. As soon as they heard the bodies fall down, all the soldiers around them were quickly following them, but by the time they made it around the big rock hiding their view of the valley, their suspects had already disappeared in thin air.

"Check the gods!" The king ordered as he saw his guards looking petrified on the spot. The small group of soldiers turned on its feet and six of them restrained the three unmoving mages only to throw them at their king's feet a few seconds after.

"You were the one making them escape, tell the truth!" The leader of the invaders accused, snapping his fingers at Ianto.

The Welshman was quick to take his hat off and throw it at the old man, blinding him for a short while. He took his chance to reach under his tunic for his gun and then took down in rapid succession the soldiers who had brought them in front of the king.

Even though his bullets finished quickly, he simply smirked evilly at the upcoming soldiers, who were trying to take advantage of his momentary lack of ammunitions, and simply hovered his hand over his gun for a fraction before aiming at his new targets and shoot them down. When he was finally free to focus again on the old king though, the man had recovered enough to freeze him again with another snap of his fingers before Ianto could do anything against him.

"You bloody bastard!" He cried, gesturing for the few soldiers left near them to restrain him properly, and then he unfroze him again.

"Were you the one helping them to disappear?"

"No" The Welshman was forced to say.

"How did they do it then?"

"Don't know" It _was_ the truth. Despite his strong suspicions on Jack's VM, nothing could tell him if that had been the case.

"You should be grateful to be alive, why are you rebelling against your master?"

"I don't have masters, I decide on my own!" Ianto snapped at the king with hatred. "Besides, you just want to be alive yourself, that's why you're gaming with Death with our souls as mere pawns!"

"You know many things, who told you them?" The king asked suspiciously.

"I've been taught to look closely at things in order to survive."

"Ha ha! Look closely? I can see you're from Earth. Earth is way beyond ignorant about everything that's not how they want it to be. Good for exploitation."

"I know, _I_ _dealt_ with those tentative of exploitation."

"Human soldier" The king drawled unappreciatively.

"Human civil servant." Ianto countered with a smirk.

The alien king kept staring at him, reading through the few things he could see inside his heart.

"Just like your '_loved one_', that human with the primitives."

"Leave Jack out of this." Ianto stated coolly, but the king was not going to let it go.

"You and you mates next to you could defeat me you know? Stop loving your families or boyfriend and nullify the power I'm extracting from you. Do it if you want to defy me!" He challenged them, but Ianto simply bit his lower lip and also the other two mages, slightly bend down their heads in defiance even more.

"You're low class species, you won't do it because you can't! You can't and that's how I'll keep defeating Death with the very same gifts she gave me. You will keep giving me and my soldiers fresh power, and in the meanwhile your soul will dry up with the realization you're causing pain to your families. You'll stare at them closely because you are too stupid to look away from who you love! Still it will be enough for me, because someone will be stupid enough to challenge me again and soon I'll have fresh people to bring back."

"Jack will find a way out of this and break the circle."

"You died twice for him and you still haven't learnt to not have faith in that man…" The king considered, shaking his head. "That's why you're low class species. You're nothing more than batteries."

"Still the little stunt you pulled with the gun is appreciable, I'm sincerely impressed." He continued, caressing his chin. "A battery that can learn is still a battery though."

He snapped again his fingers, freezing Ianto again as he placed the big hat on his head again with his shaking hands.

"Double the surveillance!" He ordered as he walked back to sit on his throne, and soon the three mages were brought back to their isolated corner.

Now that he had failed, Ianto knew that their only hope was Jack and no matter what the king had told him, he knew that his lover would always do that it needed to be done. Or at least he hoped so.

T.B.C.


	3. Hiding and Seeking

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Torchwood, no copyright infringement intended. If you still want to sue bring Ianto back to Jack first.

**Warnings**: Spoilers for basically nothing except the obvious (CoE-Day4) even though it's strictly canon based. Not beta-read and English's not my native language, constructive criticism is appreciated.

**Hiding and Seeking**

Jack, Karid and Marud reappeared safe and sound at the village before Astrid's shocked stare.

"Where were you!? Everyone was worried!"

"They brought back Jack's loverth" Marud explained to the child. "And one more of oursss."

He turned to Jack, hoping that he could give a more detailed explanation, but he could only see the captain rummaging intently inside his pockets. Eventually he was able to find the letter Ianto had written for him and quickly read it out aloud for everyone's benefit.

"_Dear Jack,_

_it might seem strange to you, but this body, even though it's not the same that held you years ago, lives and owns the very same soul that did its best to cherish the time before the worst moment for you happens: the moment when you come back to life and have to confront with life again. Now without me on the other side to check over you. When I was alive I tried my best to welcome you back to this world, when I was dead I tried to make you happy between the pain of dying and leaving death. If I failed in any this, just know that I always hoped to at least be able to give you a good time and some nice memories._

_I hate everything and every condition that prevents me from any of this, even though I do realise that our Earth and our universe must be protected. Every decision I made hurt me as much as it hurt you, but I never regret any of those because I know it was the best for you. You will be living forever, so protecting the universe still is protecting you. You will be alive forever, so trying to stop you from hurting yourself still is protecting you._

_I want you to remember this because, yes, this body is living and it isn't much different from the one you made love to, but it's also conceived to give access to the energy lying inside the depth of our spirit. In a sort of way you can call it magic, or better, chance to produce magic. It's typical of our current master, the last of a species that destroyed itself thanks to their cravings for power. He's been taught tricks, he knows by instinct how to bend this energy, but his own stock is getting lower and lower, because the level of perfection and strength he aims to needs no feelings, but his power does._

_The magic we do is actually him, we are just raw energy for him to use. He's a puppeteer, but we're less than puppets, we're only strings. He won't die easily, because the power to cheat Death using the unexpressed power of the dead for himself was given him by Death itself. I have no idea how he managed to get the arrangement, but I'm sure that it has something to do with its powers. However I don't think knowing will make the difference._

_What's important is that he's getting weaker steadily. If my assumptions are correct, he would need to be without our support power just for a few more seconds to finally use up his own reserves to the very end, but unfortunately until he's connected to us that won't happen._

_I'm trying to learn how to use this new power to at detach the others, but it's difficult and it won't be enough to save us all. Even if I succeed, you will need to at least kill me before he summons other people, I'm sorry. There's no other way out, believe me. The only alternative the master ever showed us to get to him, it's not is not a way I can take, because I simply can't stop myself from loving you. _

_Be sensible for once and don't let your feelings get too much in the way._

_I love you,_

_Ianto"_

As soon as he had finished reading, Jack felt a hysterical laugh bubble up from deep inside his own soul at the madness of the whole situation.

Ianto was somewhere behind all that apathy then. He was alive. He had been given another chance to get him back, to finish the unfinished, to do things properly. Thousands of unfolded pages to write anew.

Ianto was alive.

And as it was quite becoming a habit when this occurred, he was ready to throw it away. Once again.

His mad laughter soon broke into violent hiccups as warm tears began marring his cheeks and his relief turned into desperation. Astrid placed her paw on his hand to calm him down, but Jack had no strength to show himself stronger to her and he simply fell on his knees, crying freely.

"He's the usual idiot" He muttered as he mopped away his tears. "He tells me to not let my feelings cloud my judgment and then he does exactly what he's telling me not to do. Telling me he loves me…"

Marud took the letter from his lax hands and read it over by himself.

"He wantss usss to kill themth?" He snorted. "There'sss no way we could do ith. Whoever they were, they were our peopleth. Loved by our poepleth."

"We already did it unwillingly the other day" Karid pointed out weakly, earning Marud's glare.

"I was just saying." He added, shrugging guiltily.

"We didn't knowth! And you backed off as soon as you saw herth."

The cat-like alien looked uncomfortably at Astrid and then simply crossed his arms, pouting miserably.

"You still have the chance that Ianto manages to free your people, but I don't have any other hope. I can't kill him a third time. I know I offered to help, but this goes beyond me. If that's the choice to make I'm sorry, but I'm out."

"There's no way we would let you do it. You offered to help, but you're still a civilian on this planet and even if you weren't... Well, morals had been known to be a pain in the ass for politics, but in some rare cases like this one, it might be for the best." Karid offered.

"Besidesss we're not like themth."

"But I was" Jack argued, still sniffling. "I would have chose to kill three innocent instead of a whole world destructed. I did it, more than once, because it had to be done. It's just… not Ianto. Not again. Not anymore, even karmic punishment has to end eventually. Besides, he is always the one telling me out of this way of acting, but the bloody bastard never has qualms offering to die himself whenever he can."

"He knows how to stop the link though" Karid pointed out. "Maybe _he_'s not practiced enough to do it for three people, but _we_ can work around it."

"If we could stop the link to the other two long enoughth, your lover would have time to free himselfth"

Jack stared at the two aliens for a while and then to Astrid, who was still holding his much bigger hand with her little paw.

"I need air" He stated eventually, standing up and walking sternly out of the village gates.

Marud tried to follow him, but Karid's stopped him, gripping his shoulder. Still, Astrid had no qualms using her chance to bypass the older cat's block and follow Jack by herself. As he noticed her joining him, he smiled indulgently at her and stopped to allow the kid to join him.

"I'm dangerous, little one, you shouldn't be around me."

"I don't worry about that"

"You should. I kept causing the death or worse to one child after the other, either giving them to monsters or making messes that hurt them… When Ianto eventually made me understand I had to quit this routine, I lost him and I ended up killing my daughter's son anyway. There's no way to escape Fate and when I'm around it seems that Fate means getting people killed, especially the ones I care for."

"But that Ianto still loves you, so you mustn't have done it out of cruelty." She tried to reason. "My uncle says that many things are born out of necessity, but since it's a necessity it just comes. Most of the times you need to see what you wanted to achieve to understand if you're actually guilty or not."

"Not at the beginning, but later on I wanted to protect a much larger group of people… A whole planet… But I'm not smart enough to devise a plan safe for everyone, that's why I gathered friends around me to help me through it. Ianto was the one with enough hope and desperation to get beyond the limits even of my farfetched planes or orders..." He let himself smile as the thought of his lover came back to his mind, now more than anytime feeling the weight of his loss. "He wasn't perfect, far from it. He himself messed things sometimes and that's an understatement, but somehow I could fix his messes as much as he could fix most of mine."

"Then why you don't trust him now?"

"I trust him" Jack clarified, arching his eyebrow at the kitten, puzzled by her question.

"Then why don't you do something? Anything would be fine if that's true."

"I told you I can't" Jack repeated condescending. "_He_ was the one-"

Wait. Maybe Astrid _was_ onto something. It was true that Ianto's specialty was to fix his messes, so…

"Thank you, kitty!" He told her, taking her in his arms and kissing her on the cheek happily before lifting her to make her fly above him. "You're a genius!"

She giggled happily and he played with her some time more, thanking her in the most appropriate way for a child. When it was too late for a proper kitten to be awake, they headed back to Karid's house and discovered both men soundly asleep on the same bed, exhausted by the events of the day.

Jack and Astrid raised their eyebrows at the display, but eventually they simply settled amused on the other two free beds fitted inside the small house. Despite Jack's qualms about not needing sleep, he soon found himself sleeping soundly: after all, it had been a tiring day for him too.

***Dreaming***

Jack woke up from the sleep he had fallen into after an evening of intense sex with his young new lover, and he was surprised to notice that the other side of Ianto's bed was empty. He'd never actually slept much since becoming immortal, but when it happened, usually exhausted from sex, tears or his own thoughts, he had never woken up to an empty bed if he hadn't been alone to begin with.

He scanned the minimalistic room and eventually his eyes fell on the white bathrobe Ianto had used early that evening after his shower. He put it on and wandered outside, searching for his young mate and hoping to not have once again given too much trust to the man. Much to Ianto's credit though, Jack found him leaning on the edge of the open door that gave to the small balcony of his apartment, staring at the view sad and discomforted.

And with only a pair of pyjama trousers on.

"You will catch your death out here"

Ianto turned his head towards him only to look outside once again a few moments later.

"It would be bad, won't it?"

"Of course it would be." Jack answered making a face. "Surviving Weevils only to die of influenza at home is totally un-cool"

A soft laugh escaped Ianto's lips and even his shoulders appeared to be slightly less tensed.

"You always make it hard taking things too seriously"

"Is that a good or a bad thing?" Jack asked, encircling Ianto's shoulders with his arms as soon as he approached him.

"It's good" Ianto stated, relaxing in Jack's warm embrace.

"You're coming back to bed?"

"Soon. It's moping time, now." Ianto stated, a light smirk tugging at his lips despite his intentions.

"About?"

"It was supposed to be our anniversary today." Ianto explained with a hint of resignation in his voice. "Mine and Lisa's."

Realizing the awkwardness of the topic Jack tried to let Ianto go, but the Welshman stopped his movements, taking his hands tightly in his own.

"You're warm" He offered for lack of a better retort.

"You were the one trying to catch your un-coolly death" Jack teased him with a smile, happy that Ianto was at least willing to work it out with him. "C'mon, get back to bed."

"I wouldn't sleep"

"Let's not sleep"

"Jack." Ianto warned him with a frown, but Jack actually laughed at him and led his lover back inside, encountering no resistance of sorts.

"Hide and seek?" He proposed with a wide grin.

"I'm not in the mood for exploring my own house, thanks Jack." The captain noticed that Ianto had just said no to a particular interpretation of the game, but not to play a game in itself.

"Different kind. Be ready on the bed, I'll come back soon." Jack encouraged him, slapping Ianto's butt to make him move towards the bedroom, and then he disappeared in the kitchen.

Only a few minutes had passed and Jack finally managed to join Ianto as promised. With a bowl of grapes.

"I'll do the counting, you hide" He said, offering him a grape.

"Wait, I have to hide… the grape? Jack, this is seek and find not hide and seek"

"Well, from my point of view you hide something and then search for it, so it's not wrong calling this hide and seek too."

"Naked. And besides it still is another game."

"Naked hide and seek, naked seek and find… I don't care much about the game-play as long as you are naked and I get to put my hands over your nice body at some point."

"Over my body? So where, do pray tell, should I hide it?"

"That's kind the point of the game" Jack answered grinning seductively, and then he knelt down on the floor, hiding his eyes behind his arms over the bed.

Ianto panicked and stared frozen at his boss until he finished the counting, then he put the grape quickly in his mouth, already knowing that it was way too obvious. When Jack looked back at him, he went straight for his lips, kissing him hard until, after a little probing, he managed to get Ianto open his mouth and to successfully retrieve the fruit.

He made a show of savouring it in his mouth and then swallowed it, licking his lips as he smirked at Ianto. "That was easy. Switch?"

When it was Ianto's turn to search, he could think of no other place except the mouth, so he went straight to kiss Jack on his lips, but no matter how much he explored the hot cavern, he could find no grape at all. So, he became bolder with his exploration, searching accurately under his sides in case he had hidden it between his body and the bed, but still nothing.

Jack's wicked smirk told him he had better begin thinking with his lover's mind, that's why, offering Jack a challenging smile, he went straight to the groin area. His lover's smirk faded, but it was hard to tell if that meant he was getting closer to the hiding point or if his slow and attentive teasing was simply affecting the man.

As the search went on, Ianto could safely guess it had been a mix of the two. He finally found the missing grape hidden behind Jack's balls, but, as his eyes lingered a little more on the area, he could easily tell how Jack was beginning to show his interest. He took a deep breath, trying to get a hold of his own desires, and his eyes switched upwards to stare into his lover's ones as he ate his grape in a much less whorish way than Jack's.

"Your turn" He offered innocently.

In less than half an hour of playing, Jack had used up almost all his tricks, whilst Ianto was learning and making up each time new ones. Eventually the Welshman found himself blushing madly while his lover kept teasing his neck to make him confess the grape current hideout.

"I won't tell!" Ianto giggled, trying to contain himself.

"C'mon, I taught you the game!"

"And you're rubbish at it" Ianto deadpanned, taking advantage of a moment of rest from the torture, but he soon regretted his words when his lover started tickling him mercilessly in retaliation, making him lose himself in pearls of laughs.

"Hot or cold?" Jack tried again, keeping the tickling going with a hand and taking a firm grip of Ianto's cock with the other to arouse him further.

"Hot! Hot!" Ianto cried out half in pleasure and half harassed.

"Where's hot?" Jack asked, only barely joking since his lips were still on Ianto's neck, one hand was on his side and the other on his groin.

"In front of me" Ianto breathed out, glad that Jack's hands were momentarily still.

"I see… Here?"

Ianto let his head fall backwards and his nails almost traced red stripes on Jack's arms as the captain intensified the teasing on his groin.

"It was you! I meant that you were hot! _Are_ hot!"

"Thank you then" Jack teased, offering him a small pause from every teasing he had devised to let his lover recompose himself a bit. "But I still want that grape"

"Lips" Ianto sighed, physically exhausted and extremely turned on. "Hot is where your lips were."

"Uh?" Jack considered the position confused for a while, and then bit Ianto's shoulder. "So here is hot?"

"Hot"

"And here?" The captain licked his lover's neck with a single stroke from the shoulder up to his jaw, making Ianto shiver in delight.

"Getting... hotter…"

Just in case he had been teased again Jack resumed the tickling at Ianto's side, whilst checking thoroughly every inch of Ianto's neck area. Ianto tried to defend himself struggling the best way he could when giggling desperately, until eventually the grape rolled out from behind the nape of his neck.

Jack took it between his lips and held Ianto tightly to roll them over and leave him resting boneless over him. He leaned forward and fed him the grape, taking his chance for another deep throated kiss. His hands were now caressing tenderly his shoulders and his back, hoping to relax both himself and his lover.

"Sweet prize" Ianto commented, licking his lips both at the sweet juice and at the nice view offered by his flustered lover breathing heavily below himself.

He moved to get comfortable over him, trying to balance himself enough to not crush Jack under his weight. "Thanks"

"Was it good then?"

"Yep" Ianto held him tighter by the waist and took care to hide the dark blush spreading all over his cheeks. "Was it good for you as it was for me?"

"Why do you ask?" Jack asked him honestly. It wasn't the first time that Ianto seemed to take more care into making sure he enjoyed something than about enjoying it himself. He couldn't deny that the thought worried him a bit.

"It was fun. And it felt so good for me that I wanted you to feel just as good"

Jack took in Ianto's earnest answer and held him tighter in his arms, leaving a sweet kiss on the top of his head. He began caressing lovingly his hair, trying not to think too much about what could have been the deepest reason behind Ianto's words or if the Welshman was actually conscious of the implications of it at all.

They had plenty of time to figure it out, there was no need to worry about it right now: he had plenty of time and Ianto was extremely young, even more so if he actually considered how long it was the age gap. Moreover, despite what could be said about Torchwood, Ianto worked mainly inside the base or with him in easily manageable missions, so death by Torchwood wasn't going to be an immediate issue.

They still had time, and that was the only thing that really mattered.

**X**

**A/N:** I was conflicted about the naked hide&seek/seek&find part because it was getting too long to be only a cute/hot insert, but it goes against my belief cut the porn when I have the chance to play out the whole scene. I'm _**not **_forcing you to leave a review (even though it will be appreciated), but if some of you'd like to get more of the dream, you can simply leave a short PM and I'll do a short one-shot.


	4. Battle of wills

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Torchwood, no copyright infringement intended. If you still want to sue bring Ianto back to Jack first.

**Warnings**: Spoilers for basically nothing except the obvious (Ianto in CoE-Day4) even though it's strictly canon based. Not beta-read and English's not my native language, constructive criticism is appreciated.

**Battle of wills**

Jack woke up when the night was still dark outside, nevertheless he decided to go for a walk. He didn't want to start any preparation before discussing the details of the plan he had in mind with his new friends, so he simply let his feet bring him wherever they wanted until he reached the far end of the village.

There was a small rise there, so he decided to sit on the top of it, happy that the slight increase in height he had managed to gain granted him a way more interesting view.

As he watched the small mountains losing themselves in the horizon, he tried to remember the details of their slopes and the paths that run all though them. When he had seen them the day before, while he was coming from the desert to the village, he hadn't paid much attention to them, but after what he had seen that evening, their meaning for him had changed a lot, because he knew that Ianto was behind them somewhere.

They were so near and yet again so far, like nothing had actually changed much from their encounter inside the void barely few hours before, when there had been genuine matters of existence separating them.

Jack was still absorbed in his nostalgic thoughts, when he felt someone materialise at his side. He had no need to turn and look at the apparition to understand who had joined him.

_You are not going to follow my advice, aren't you? _

"Mental projection." He considered impressed. "It seems to me that you're far better than what you want us to believe."

_I wasn't lying, this whole power control thing… is complicated. Moreover I don't have many chances to learn and practice, so I can't even hope to protect the others AND myself, one has to go. I can detach them, but they can't do the same for me. Our situation is slightly different_

"I would say 'why you?' but you've always been the best dealing with improbable situation."

_Tosh was good too_

"When she could turn it into an equation or into a computer program… No Ianto, you are the one that can improvise, the one that likes order so much that he will always try to find a way to put everything where it was supposed to be"

_The kitten's mother belongs to kitten though, and the other new one… He is your lizard friend's father. You can't ask me to be so egoistic to put myself over their chance at life. Besides, they are unaffected, I have no idea of what I would be. I took my chances when I discovered that I could read the king's mind as much as he could read mine, but I did it just in order to help you… Maybe even kiss you properly one last time_

"As far as I'm concerned things will be in order only when you'll be back at my side. Human, god, mage… I don't care what you will be."

_I care Jack, and anyway I have the bracelet, we can still be together. I thought you liked what we had in the darkness…_

"Of course I liked it!" Jack protested, still not daring to look at the evanescent form he knew that was sitting next to him. "But I don't want to chose once again something else over you. Not my fears, not the Earth, not even this planet! This has to stop!"

_You're irrational_

"You knew I was like that from the beginning. I'm a monster that believes to be a hero after all, what's more irrational than that…"

_I was wrong. It's just… I'm so rational that when I'm irrational only your rational is irrational enough to get through me_

In front of the ethereal Ianto shocked stare, Jack, who had been pouting and stomping his feet until few seconds before, simply burst out in laughs.

"I like seeing you after I die, I really do love it. It gives me strength to face the truth once more, I guess it's something I'd wish for if I didn't have it… But I want this kind of mumble jumbo every day of my life, Ianto, not just on occasions. I need you more here."

_So I entertain you?_

"Yes, you do." Jack confirmed fondly, staring at the first rays of light appearing in the distance. "Do I entertain you?"

Ianto smiled embarrassedly in his direction, a hint of blush creeping up his ethereal neck.

_Yes. You're the light of my death _

Jack stared for the first time back at his lover and Ianto offered him a sad smile, both of them feeling right through their being that their separation was imminent.

_I would do everything to stay with you. You made- You make everything more bearable_

"You should go now, before they get to you." Jack told him, despite his insane wish to hug the vanishing image in front of him. Much to his surprise Ianto smirked at him and gave him a mischievous glance.

_I don't fear their punishments truth to be told, but I find it rather annoying how they keep making me revive the ones I managed to take down. Those were bloody good shots_

He shared the last bit of his tale grievously, obviously pretending to be serious and like this eliciting a soft giggle from his lover for it.

"I sense a tale here." Jack teased him with a forced smile. "And I want to hear it from you in person. I have a plan. Just play by it, because I know you can."

_What if I can't?_

"You're a god now"

_I'm a battery as the king kindly put it_

Even when it was evanescent, Ianto's pout always managed to be adorable in Jack's eyes, but once again worthless when it was a matter of making him change idea once he had decided onto something.

"A nice sexy battery… You know I like everything, batteries hadn't been on my list for a while."

_You are not going to seduce me telling me 'Charge me up, baby'_

Despite Ianto's solemn statement, Jack didn't show any sign to accept his request.

"You bet I will. Right after 'You're my sex god' and 'Your coffee is divine'."

Eventually they both burst into laughter, but as soon as they got a grip of themselves they noticed how Ianto's projection was beginning to flicker and fade any second more.

_I must go. I'll wait for you…_

"Be safe" Jack managed to say, right before Ianto definitively disappeared. Still he stared at the same spot he had occupied for a bit more, fighting the need to reach out with his hand for the illusion that had already vanished but still felt impressed on his retinas.

The sounds of the village waking up encouraged him to give up the illusion that was still hunting him like he had never been left alone on the rise. He eventually stood up and did his best to get back where he'd come from to meet with his friends.

He found Karid and Marud barely awake, whilst Astrid still was sound asleep. The three of them left soon the small broken house with some bread and a couple of bottles of water to let the kitten sleep some more.

As they consumed their frugal breakfast, Jack took his chance to tell them about his chat with Astrid the night before and his meeting with Ianto earlier that day, but he knew that convincing them about his plan could be even more difficult than convincing them that he had actually _talked_ with his lover in a forgotten place of their village.

"So, you want a duel. With the king." Karid summarized eventually.

"He will never accepth."

"I have faith in Karid's smart tongue" Jack retorted, hoping to butter up the cat-man.

"Not even my tongue can assure us that he will effectively release the other two while fighting with only your Ianto. Besides if the boy really pulled his leg at the camp he won't trust him, not in a fight that could have the end of the war at stake."

"He trust himself though, and he would think that his control is going to be tougher if there will be only one of them to restrain. He will be lulled in a false sense of security and we'll get him there."

"Thisss will work only if your lover manages to free himselfth! The king'ssss control _will_ be tougherth!"

"I would trust him with the whole universe and more. If someone can do this, the man is Ianto."

"What if he can't? You won't just lose him, you would be the one killing him! Could you really do something like that?"

"And consider he wantsss you to do ith"

"It won't come to that" Jack retorted with confidence. "But if he has to die a third time… Well, then it's better to keep going with the same killer he'd always had."

Karid and Marud stared at him disconcerted for a while and then glanced quickly at each other as they tried to put together their thoughts on the matter.

"You're not his killerth"

"I might as well be it." Jack told them gravely, not finding enough strength in himself to reason over something that he still believed true. "I've done nothing to keep him safe when I had the chance and it's enough for marking me as guilty."

"Stillth-"

"I'm fine. Really"

"I'll organize everything then." Karid snapped, standing quickly up in front of Marud's shocked stare, exasperated by Jack's manners. "Do I need to set up a backup plan?"

"No backups, but I want it today if possible, worse case tomorrow."

Both locals stared astonished at him, but Jack gave them the most professional stare he could muster to make them understand how serious he was.

"If _we_ don't have time for backups neither will _they_."

"Be serioussss!" Marud hissed. "Your Ianto hasss just been brought back to lifeth! Do you really believe that in twenty-four hoursss he can manage something no one of oursss couldth?"

"We were trapped in our own base and he worked out how to make a phone call, he managed to stay alive after a Dalek and Cyberman invasion the first time he met them, he _created_ a Cyberman conversion unit out of scraps quickly enough to save one of them only half converted, he keeps remembering names and numbers after hearing them one single time. Yes, I do believe _he can_."

"I saw lights at their camp tonight" He continued, trying to share his hope with the others. "I bet the king is practicing, fearing another attack, and you can bet this will be his downfall."

"You're awfully sure of this"

"I am. I would trust Ianto with everything."

"We don't have much to lose at this point and I don't have a different plan. I'll find a way to arrange the duel." Karid stood up and run up to one of the people passing by to get paper and a pen for an official request.

"I'll deal with our villagersss thenth. Ssstill…" Marud stared at Jack closely, his yellow eyes solemn and determined. "You'll have to practice and prepare yourself in case the worse happensss."

"It won't happen" Jack retorted confidently, but the lizard-man simply handed him some new boxes of ammunition for his gun.

"Practicing helpssss when you have too many thoughtsss."

Jack put the boxes in the pockets of his coat and watched Marud call all the villagers around him to inform them about the plan and what was expected from them. Maybe the lizard-man wasn't wrong suggesting an easy way to pull his thought together. Some shots would help him to think better about what he had to wait for.

He walked aimlessly for a while and eventually he chose an area not far from the village, one covered by small rocks that he could easily use as targets for his practicing. As he shot the first one though, the rock wasn't the only thing to break.

His arm tensed and started to tremble as his knees gave in, making him fell boneless on the ground.

A panic attack was not what he had expected.

He had shot aliens and other things since Thames House, moreover he had never found many problems dealing with the mechanics of what had happened in London. Now for some strange reason it felt different, and images of the cerulean tank full of venom were there even now in front of him, impressed on his retinas.

This time, yet again, his shots would be aimed to kill his lover, and not just to release some poisonous gas, but to kill him the traditional way: lots of blood and pained whines.

If he felt so scared and shell-shocked now in front of a bunch of rocks, how was he supposed to _deal_ with Ianto if everything didn't go according to his plan? This was a planet he had just happened to hop onto, but Ianto would hate him forever if he sacrificed it while trying to save him.

Still, if he could find enough strength within himself to do it… but he really was trying to not do such things anymore, not on such a large scale.

Jack didn't even try to stand up, but once again he did his best to shot one of the rocks, missing miserably the target.

Jack sighed and aimed for another rock. It was going to be a really long day.

**X**

At some point around noon, Astrid interrupted Jack's shooting practice, finding the captain still at a loss dealing with his own feelings. Moreover the news the little kitten brought didn't cheer him up much, since everything was perfectly going according to his plan and the duel had been arranged for later that evening.

As always, he had acted before thinking each and every detail accurately, and now his plan was going on exactly the way he wanted even though he was not able to follow its tracks anymore.

When she left him alone again, he focused his frustration against Karid's diplomatic skills and finally managed to blow to pieces one of the rocks. Unfortunately, the trick wouldn't survive a confrontation with his lover, but at least it gave him some momentary satisfaction.

The dreaded evening came too soon, even though he had no one to blame for it but himself and his initial enthusiasm for the chance to end things quickly. Marud's words, hissing aside, kept echoing in his mind, making him realise how many faults there were in his plan and how small it was the attention he had given to the details.

What if the king chose another mage and not Ianto? The aliens' projects could be completely different from what he had thought possible. And what if controlling just him it was truly too much for his lover to free himself? Ianto had told him clearly that it was difficult for him to actually _use_ the power he got. What if his friends words were true? Could he really shot Ianto, could he really kill him once again?

Eventually very few rocks had met their end before the evening fall around him and the time for the duel came.

When he finally found himself in front of the invaders' king, some of his fears died down, but new ones he hadn't thought about arise. He and the old man found themselves in the middle of an empty space, created by the crowd of the soldiers and the villagers that had come to watch the duel that would decide their future. Some of them had even come from the nearby settlements and that made Jack suspect that Karid had done more than just what he was supposed to do.

For the moment though, he had more important things to think about.

The first and most evident of them was that the king was sitting on his own throne, showing no will to physically participate at the battle. The second was that all the three mages had been imprisoned inside a small cell in front of everyone. It was plainly weird since they were in the same catatonic state he had seen Ianto the night before: there was no need for an actual cell to contain them.

"So you really are back to the livings, the cat was telling the truth. I could really use your life force without fearing for you to die on me. Not much at least… Things are really getting interesting…"

Jack turned towards Karid, who was standing behind him with Astrid secured tightly in his arms, and glared at him, but the cat-man simply shrugged, as to say that there had been no other choices.

"Well, yeah, many people wants me as their specimen, but not many had the chance to actually put their hands on my body. Not for that at least, I'm quite resilient."

"That's why I'm meeting your request. Or should I say _parts_ of it." He clapped his hands and two soldiers took the white and black dressed mage from inside the cell, leading him roughly next to the king. He made a show of taking away the enormous hat on his head, so that everyone could see Ianto's catatonic face clearly. "Is this the one you wanted me to use, isn't it? The rebellious one."

"How do we know you're not tricking us?" Jack asked insure if he was supposed to be happy or worried. The king had said he would meet part of the agreement, but… what agreement? If Karid had been honest while arranging the meeting, there weren't many things left to change.

"You think your species is superior to these other two in front of us, don't you?" The old man began explaining, staring at Jack challengingly. "And maybe you're right, but it still is beneath mine. For me using this or one of the others is the same, it won't take me much to destroy you. Anyway, being _you_ my opponent makes things different. Watching you fighting against your mate here will be the best of the entertainments. Thanks for the idea."

"I'll ask you again: how do we know it's just him?"

The king snorted and snapped his fingers, releasing the other two mages from the bindings. "Happier now?"

The two prisoners tried to break free as soon as they could, but there was no chance for them to broke the restraining they were confined into, so they only things they could do was to bang on the cold metal bars of their cell in frustration.

"Where's the catch?" Jack asked, not trusting him at all.

"He will be _my puppet_ this time, not my battery" The king answered, a malicious glint still showing in his eyes.

"That wasn't what we agree on!" Karid cried out from the crowd of the villagers, but Jack quickly gestured him to keep quiet.

"I can deal with this" He explained to the cat-man without actually turning to face him.

"Oh, you can?" The king asked interested, barely watching towards Ianto to make him move. "Can you really face him like this?"

Without a word to announce it, the duel began and it wasn't at all what Jack had wished it to be. Ianto gave him no rest with a long streak of physical attacks, so to not use his gun and hurt him, his only resort was dodging them and escaping far from his lover. The king seemed to enjoy every second of it and still stared at them laughing madly at the worried expression Jack knew he was wearing.

"Running won't help you!" The king told him eventually. "Let's change things a little… What about this?"

In a fraction of time Ianto reached beneath his tunic, took out his gun and began firing at him. Nothing in his lover's manners made him think hie was conscious of his current actions, still strangely the bullets kept missing him. By a scratch of course, but he still had managed to not get killed after the six bullets Ianto's gun could fire and he counted it as a plus.

When he saw him recharging it with a simple caress over it though, he began to pale.

"Ianto please, you can do this!"

Ianto shot at him again, this time missing him by a fraction and taking off some strands of his spiky hair. After being almost caught though, he found himself having plenty of time to escape his lover's aim and stop his arm before he could shot at him a second time. His last shot disappeared with a loud bang in the depth of the sky.

"C'mon, I taught you better than this! Fight it off!"

"He can't hear you!" The king's voice teased him from afar. "And I won't try being cosy like this with him if I were you. You could get burned."

Before Jack had the chance to get away from Ianto, his coat caught fire. He quickly managed to get rid of it and soon Marud successfully put over it some dried earth to suffocate the flames. Still his prided joy was now left unusable.

"You will pay for this!" Jack yelled at the king, who simply stared at him unconcerned.

"Was it really so important to you that ragged coat? Kill your lover then, so you will finally manage to get me."

Jack tried to not be too much concerned by those words, and then stared again at Ianto, who actually seemed slightly more shocked than he remembered.

Well Ianto had always loved his coat.

That thought made something came back to his mind: Ianto had written something about how the power was given by their feelings… The king's stock had dried out as he was trying to reach the perfection, so if cold and polished feelings were what the old man needed, maybe unsettle Ianto's could give to his lover enough space to rebel. After all what would be the reason to keep them comatose if it didn't hurt him?

"Ianto! Is this the way you feel for me?" Jack tried out of desperation. "You shoot me and you barely wrinkle, but you pout for burning my coat?"

As soon as he finished speaking, a swirl of water was thrown at him unceremoniously and their fight started again in the fashion of a game of tags. Jack escaped all the four elements and more, realizing, as he almost got hit by a flying rock, that maybe anger was not the right way to stimulate Ianto's rebellious spirit.

"Is this all you've got? I bet Gwen would have been bett-"

This time Jack had no time to finish his statement that he quickly had to dodge several bullets aiming for his heart. No, he got the feeling that jealously was completely out of question either.

He tried making him remember his friends, his family, his work, but nothing seemed to be successful and, worse than that, he was losing ground steadily. Every time he tried to reach for Ianto, the elements run loose, much to the king's enjoyment and Jack's desperation.

There was only one thing for him left to do.

Eventually he rushed towards his lover, holding him tight and locking their lips tight together. Ianto didn't answer, but Jack couldn't feel him backing off either, so he deepened the kiss. He could feel Ianto barely moving and he really hoped that he had been right this time, betting on love and passion.

A cold trembling hand reached his jaw, as if Ianto was desperately trying to fight for control against the king, to do what he wanted. A broken sigh, barely audible at all, managed to reach Jack's ear, making the captain feel a little more reassured about the outcome of everything. Eventually also the cold, frozen lips he was kissing managed tentatively to brush over his.

Then, the only thing he felt was cold metal on his shoulder and a loud bang.

T.B.C.


	5. Whole New Worlds

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Torchwood, no copyright infringement intended. If you still want to sue bring Ianto back to Jack first.

**Warnings**: Spoilers for basically nothing except the obvious (Ianto in CoE-Day4) even though it's strictly canon based. Not beta-read and English's not my native language.

* * *

**Whole New Worlds**

* * *

Jack let Ianto go abruptly, and clutching his now bloody shoulder tightly to himself, he withdrew some steps from his lover. As soon as he had backed off though, the Welshman fell boneless on the dirty ground and cries of horror were heard from the invading soldiers behind them.

He turned to stare at the king, fearing the worst, but the only thing he saw was the old man staring back at him with glassy unfocused eyes.

Dead.

He retreated slightly in order to protect Ianto's body, and reached for his gun, ready to face the revenge of the soldiers, but before the invaders could actually do something against any of them, a flashing light shone from behind him.

"Close your eyes!" Karid cried, and Jack had just enough time to do what he had been told before it exploded even brighter, surrounding him in a white warm light.

When he opened his eyes again, all the soldiers before him were turned into stone. He looked back at his new friends, and saw them, along with all the other inhabitants of the planet, holding some devices shaped as laser guns. Karid smirked at him and made a show of blowing away imaginary smoke from his weapon, challenging him with his eyes.

"How about that?"

"I thought we said no backup plans." Jack snapped at him as soon as he realised what the cat-man had orchestrated behind his back. He hadn't actually looked much into the technology level of the planet before the invasion, but the king himself had put them more or less on Earth's same point. It had really been careless of him to forget that they could develop real modern weapons by themselves.

"This has always been the plan, so no backups as you can see."

"Don't take it personally, he'sss a bloody politicianth." Marud reassured Jack before looking down to Ianto's still unmoving form, his reptilian eyes full of sadness as well as concern. "Sssstill we could have done nothing without your loverth."

Jack's eyes followed Marud's to stare at Ianto's prone figure on the ground. His dark hair was white with dust, the immaculate skin of his right hand was dirtied with his own blood and pieces and bits of his double coloured tunic were spread around him in disarray. He hadn't noticed how violently most of Ianto's elemental attacks had backfired against the Welshman while he was too busy not getting killed by them.

"I-Ianto?" Jack let himself fall right next to him, taking slowly his hand away from his shoulder as he felt it almost completely healed, and tentatively reached for Ianto's cold cheek.

He had understood nothing of what had happened, except for Karid's medusa photon guns petrifying the invaders, but whatever it was he wasn't ready to deal with it. He wasn't ready to deal, yet again, with Ianto's eventual death.

Jack had spent a whole day trying to reason with his feelings about the need to do the 'right thing', but eventually his desire to have Ianto back with him had won, and the time he had kept for himself had only made his inner conflict worse.

"When he shot you, the bullet got through your shoulder" Karid told him, guessing some of the reason behind Jack's confusion. "I think he did it on purpose, after all it was a minor damage for you… It still might have happened by chance though, and if it has… he could not- If they were still connected…"

Jack shook his head, not wanting to hear the words as much as his friend didn't want to say them. Not wanting to admit that the chance Karid was suggesting could have been true: if they were still connected to one another, Ianto's soul would have followed the king's one straight to reign of the dead.

Ianto would have been gone and lost again, and Jack would only have another funeral to escape from, another grave to not cry on. Another small piece of hope inside the void in which he couldn't stay for as long as he wanted.

"No no no! Please, not again!" Jack cried to no one in particular as his hands gripped his lover's shirt and he brought up his body, so he could hold him in his arms better. His soft cry became slowly a hysterical laughter and Marud, after a quick glance shared with Karid, reached his side to pat gently his back.

"Jackth? Are you all righth?"

"He's breathing…" Jack answered, his voice muffled by the material of Ianto's wrecked tunic. "Oh my god, he's alive!"

"So… He did it?" Karid asked shocked, fighting with himself to not run to hug Jack in a rush of joy.

"You eventually managed it, didn't you?" Jack asked Ianto, his face only far enough to stare at his lover's sleeping face, but not daring to let more space coming in between them. "You freed yourself and killed him before he could switch to one of the others… My hero."

Jack tightened his hold on Ianto, kissing adoringly the tip of his nose. He was cold to the touch, barely breathing and extremely pale, but he was alive and to Jack this made the biggest difference in the whole galaxy.

"How is he?" A female voice came from behind Jack. As he turned to look at the newcomer, he saw a stunning cat-woman dressed with a white tunic and with a hat too big for her in her hands. Judging by the unbelievable family resemblance, she certainly was the other mage his friends had told him about, Astrid's mother.

She sprinted to his side and knelt down beside him, opposite to Marud, to reassure herself of Ianto's condition.

"He saved us." She said, her voice slightly wavering. "None of us could speak, nevertheless he managed to project reassurance on us. It's incredible how much he was able to learn in so little time… I've been there almost a year and I could do nothing to break the connection or to get a hold of our powers."

"This is my Ianto for you" Jack stated proudly, caressing lovingly his lover's cheek.

"Mama!" Astrid's voice came from behind the safe wall of Karid's legs, as the little kitten rushed forwards to meet her mother.

The former mage welcomed her daughter hugging her dearly, and a small smirk graced her lips as she looked up to Karid. Jack felt the need to point out that somehow to see her smiling didn't made her similar to the Cheshire cat as much as it happened with the other cat.

"Welcome back, Farah" Karid replied formally, still trying to look too cool for dramatic reunions.

Farah wasn't impressed though. She took more firmly Astrid in her arms and run to hug Karid, licking him tenderly on his cheek.

"Stop it!" He cried out embarrassed, trying to push her away without much success or conviction.

"You're damned now, little brother, just deal with it." She stated victoriously with a final lick.

"Everyone should be back to their homesss" A deep voice came from behind Jack, making him freeze in apprehension as he hadn't heard anyone approaching at all. The newcomer towering over him was the split image, yet older, of Marud. His black tunic was open and underneath it, complexly decorated clothes could be seen, trimmed in golden over deep red. "This racial intermix could be dangeroussss now that no common enemy is aroundth."

Marud stood up to stare snobbishly at the other lizard-man and snorted at him. "Welcome back father, now go back minding your own businesssss"

Karid coughed to hide his amused laugh and diplomatically offered a more conciliating solution. "I suggest a truce to sort out where to go from here. We tell everyone that the invasion is over and discuss everyone's opinions. As for the moment this is what that should take priority. After all nothing needs to be _exactly_ like it was before the invasion."

"I'll leave you to that." Jack took his chance to excuse himself, noticing Marud's father ready to start arguing with Karid. "I just want to take Ianto where I can take care of him, my mission here is over. As long as he sleeps I won't be able to know if everything is fine with him, but I would like if I could have a place to take care of him properly."

"Keep the house we shared" Karid suggested with a small smile. "Use it at least until he wakes up and then decide what to do. No harsh decision needed. I'll arrange something else for the rest of us, don't worry."

"Thanks, Karid." Jack told the cat, grinning at him. "Or do you actually go by something else? Minister? President? I'll let you know I dislike politicians."

"It would be Governor Karid, but Karid's fine. I'm not actually governing anything at the moment."

"That'sss beside the point, you've never done muchth" Marud challenged Karid, who Jack was beginning to think was originally something more like the lizard-man arch-nemesis.

"Prince Marud's back. Long life to the enslavers of people's free will." Karid teased him back with fake malice, proving his point quicker than Jack thought possible.

"Everyone of ourssss isss free to do what they wanth"

"Except governing their own nation!"

"Stop it right now!" Farah broke into the argument, slapping her brother's head with her paw. "I want peace at the moment, we just survived an alien invasion! You two solve your unresolved political tensions by yourselves!"

"The tensions here are not just political" Jack sniggered, earning all the others' stares on him. "I mean... We'll just go."

And so he did, leaving behind his new friends, who were showing their embarrassment in more or less visible ways to their people and families, and walking back to the village with Ianto in his arms. As soon as he reached the house, Jack set him in the much more comfortable bed and took a seat next to him, getting ready to what he knew it was going to be an extremely long waiting.

It was almost unnatural for him to be the one waiting for his lover to wake up. It was true that needing less sleep than Ianto he had always had more than just a few hours to kill as much as it was true that he had waited more than a century to meet the Doctor again. Still he had always found ways to keep himself busy: as John Heart had eloquently put it, Ianto was a real eye candy and, while waiting for answers, he still he had Torchwood.

Now the only thing he was left with was his own thoughts, and it took him only 24 hours to realize how unfair it had been to Ianto to make him wait all that time by himself as he was off with the Doctor.

After the initial disappointment at not having his lover swiftly back with him and the raising sense of guilt that damned him, he came to the conclusion that this was his punishment and resignedly decided to endure the pain and tedious hours stoically.

The days passed fast and unchanging, quickly becoming weeks. Jack's constant companion for his dull castigation became Astrid, who had eventually escaped her mother's worries to join him and ask questions about the sleeping boy and the strange clothes he was wearing under the black and white tunic.

Jack gladly accepted the company she offered and ended up telling her their adventures with Torchwood -obviously in a very fairy tale way- and the less hardcore moments he and Ianto had shared together.

They had always put themselves in funny predicaments, especially considering how their love-story had essentially begun as a game, and Jack had always been a pretty good story teller, so Astrid found herself enraptured by every tale, always asking for more.

She was a little girl and little girls were known to love romantic love stories, moreover, while he was narrating the nicest memories they had shared, Jack managed to keep his mind in a sort of stand-by that preserved him from the thousands of what-ifs that had quickly gathered in his mind.

What if Ianto wasn't going to wake up again? What if his brain had been damaged? What if he forgot about him? What if they discovered that his current body couldn't last? His wrist strap had somehow reassured him, but it could have been faulty.

That's why chatting was good: good to push away his fears, good to confront his life with Ianto until now.

Eventually he had even managed to find enough courage to touch subjects he didn't like to be reminded of, like the experience with the Cyberwoman, even though the way that story was extorted from him by the curious kitten didn't really make much sense to him.

"There must have been a moment in which you realised he was the one!" Astrid was spurring him on. "In every fairy tale there is, so that must be true even with you two."

"Love struck is not always the way love stories happen in reality though." Jack smiled at Ianto even though the condescending words were meant for his companion of solitude.

"I think you were love struck that first night in the park" She insisted, her eyes staring dreamily at the ceiling in a way that made Jack actually wonder how Astrid had imagined their mess with the Weevil that evening. "You only realised it much later."

"You can't always have the fairy tale in real life, Astrid"

"There is, it's just that you don't get it!" She insisted. "The beautiful moment in which you realized you would have forgiven him everything as long as he stayed with you... That was in my favourite cartoon!"

"Well, that's not just for the love stories… Moments like those happened with my other friends too…"

"You see!? There is one for him then! C'mon, tell!"

Jack laughed at the kitten's enthusiasm and proceeded to tell her about the events regarding Lisa in the least horrifying way he could.

"…unfortunately the cyber-lady was far too gone, and she struck Ianto so hard that he fell on the floor. I tried to be left unconscious next to him, so as soon as I woke up I could check on him. His conditions were desperate and… he was simply lying there, in the cold water, looking even worse than he is now."

Jack allowed another small smile to grace his lips as he stared at Ianto's sleeping form and pushed lightly some strands of hair away from his forehead with a loving caress.

"The life was almost all gone from him, there was only a tiny little sparkle left."

"So the hero kissed the sleeping prince?" She asked, enraptured by the tale.

"I'm not the hero of this story, but yes, I kissed him and I brought him back to me. So the sleeping prince could once again try to save the princess he wanted to protect with all his might. Eventually he realized he had been tricked, that the cyber-lady could not find herself anymore… but his too gentle heart could have never given her what she needed."

"And what did she need?"

"Freedom…" Jack felt the need to stop, realizing that now he might have been in no better condition than his lover back at the time. Ianto had told him he wanted death, but he had plainly ignored him, feeding himself of the very same hope he had condemned in the Welshman at the time. What if Ianto was now supposed to sleep forever like stories like Sleeping Beauty and Snow White? Who was Jack to deny him the freedom to die?

Still it didn't felt like there were no hopes left like the time with Lisa: there were no machines keeping him alive and Ianto was simply sleeping. Were his justifications even real or was he just as deluded as Ianto was at the time with his girlfriend? The hand that still rested on his lover's forehead slipped down to cup his cheek as he leaned in to kiss him gently on the lips.

Not many second later, he felt Ianto kiss him back.

He backed off to look at his lover properly, and he found two shining blue orbs staring happily at him.

"You really have a nick to kiss me when I'm dead or sort of."

"Oh, Ianto!" Jack cried, trying to suppress a laugh, as he threw himself at his lover to hug him tight and kiss him again.

"Mmm, alive and conscious is much better" Ianto considered when Jack finally let him go. "At least this time it was me and not Gwen the in the Sleeping Beauty kissing scene."

"Dark hair and skin like snow… You would be better off as Snow White, my Prince."

"My hair is not pitch black and I would still be missing the blood red lips"

"Then let me try and change the last part of it at least" Jack told him lewdly, kissing him again hungrily.

Ianto felt two tiny arms around his waist, followed by a couple of nudges to bring their attention back to their surroundings, so eventually he realized that they had better to break the kiss.

"I want to greet the prince too! I was the one telling the hero to kiss the sleeping prince!" She muttered.

"Really?" Ianto told her softly, moving from Jack enough to look at the pouting kitten. "Then I have to thank you."

"I did well?"

"Yes you did." He confirmed, ruffling her fur and making her purr in delight.

"I would say the villain took the prince, actually." Jack felt the need to point out, not entirely displeased by the interruption and enjoying the domesticity of the situation.

"The repented conman took the tea boy seems far better to me." Ianto countered, burying his eyes deep into Jack's soul.

"And they lived happily ever after?" Jack teased.

"Only after a bit of more sleep" Ianto retorted yawning. "Moreover there's a last thing I'd like to do"

Both Jack and Astrid stared at Ianto with their eyebrows raised in confusion as they saw him stand up with determination and open the door of the small house to take a look at the outside. He crooked his fingers and opened his arms wide, his eyebrows furrowing in deep concentrations.

Soon, an air blow tried to be shot forwards, but it rebounded against him, throwing him backwards and making him hit the wall violently. As he thought he couldn't have been more shamed than that, a shelf fell on his head.

"Owww!" He hauled in pain in front of the amused and slightly worried stares of Jack and Astrid.

Despite the negative outcome, Ianto tried again, striding back to the same spot right out of the door and repeating the same gesture, this time apparently putting on it way more concentration.

As a wind-like force departed from where he was to extend seemingly the whole land, leaving fresh purple grass wherever it run, even on the dull, dried and burned ground, all the three of them understood that now it had been a complete success.

Unfortunately, Jack had to rush at his side soon enough to catch him in his arms, because in no time Ianto's knees gave in and he fell, panting heavily from over exhaustion.

"God my ass, this thing is impossible to control." Ianto moaned, hiding his face in his lover's chest, desperate for comfort.

"You did a fair job for a first attempt on your own." Jack reassured him, cuddling him close to his chest.

"I wanted to do more"

"There's still time" Jack whispered warmly in his ear, tightening his grip on him and caressing his sweaty hair. "Besides, how does this work now? Won't you risk using up your vital energy playing these tricks? How did you even learn them in the first place?"

"It won't touch my vital energy as long I can keep myself low level." Ianto said, despite his laboured breathing, and then he looked at his lover straight in the eye as he tried to find enough strength in himself to reveal what he feared the most. "I can also keep myself alive for much longer than I'm supposed to live. It will take lots of practice and eventually I'll have to grow old, but I think I can manage to almost heaven with you."

"Don't think about it now." Jack told him, realizing as soon as he had said those words that Ianto might think he didn't care at all to stay with him forever. "For the moment I just want for you to be safe."

"I can choose not to" Ianto insisted. "But still it won't hurt me as long as I keep my powers as a last resort. Is not like I'm hopeless without them."

"What about Farah and Marud's father? Could they do this too?"

"They were brought back to life straight away… Now it's like they have the door, but not the key. I managed to access the king's knowledge when he created this body to bring me back, but he failed the actual resuscitation. At the time I was with you in the void. Between the first and the second attempt to resurrect me I had plenty of time to '_make a copy_' of that key, so I could get the information I wanted… Still, this reminds me of something else"

As his lover tried again his trick for the third time, Jack couldn't stop staring worriedly at him.

"Ianto, whatever you're trying to do, it doesn't look much '_low level_' to me."

"Well I'm going to allow myself some exceptions once in a while. _That_ along with the aging thing if you have no objections."

That said, Ianto shot the blow of wind once again, but this time, even though it seemed stronger than the previous ones, it produced no evident results on the land. Nevertheless he got even paler and eventually collapsed again, losing momentarily consciousness.

"Ianto!" Jack cried as his lover fell in his arms boneless. "If you keep failing like this, you will get yourself killed!"

"I did not fail" Ianto managed to mutter despite the heavy daze falling in him and the slight tremors that shook his frame. "I got 'em back."

"Who?"

Before his lover could answer him, a distressed cat-man rushed breathlessly towards them.

"Did he do something?" Karid yelled.

"What have you done?" Jack reprimanded Ianto suspiciously, but he simply got more comfortable in his lover's arms, almost giving in again to the enticing allure of sleep.

"I just resurrected the inhabitants" Ianto confessed with a yawn, and then looked up to his lover with a big cunning grin plastered on his face. "Just this once, everybody lives."

"You…" Jack told him half amazed and half angry. "You must always have it your way…"

"No, I don't" Ianto admitted seriously, closing his eyes tiredly and resting his head once again on Jack's chest. "But sometimes it's nice not having it my way. I missed being alive next to you too much."

"Well, yes" Jack told him flirty. "I would choose you responsive and alive at my side every day of my life too."

Jack and Ianto stayed with the locals long enough to reassure everyone about Ianto's health, but eventually the Welshman fell deeply asleep again in Jack's caring embrace.

Slowly the planet was changing once again and some of the villagers also ventured back to their own ruined cities, ready to start the reconstruction of the biggest and most devastated metropolises. Thanks to Farah's mediation and some wise reproaches from Marud to the whole Royal family, the political differences were cast aside hopefully for the time being.

A new era had opened for the planet, but for Jack everything was back again to the dull waiting at his lover's side. Ianto had still not waked up since the day he had healed the world that had managed to reconnect them and its inhabitants' souls.

He had fallen in another comatose sleep after the big stunt he had pulled, and eventually he needed another whole week to recharge his energies.

Considering how Jack didn't require much sleep, whilst Ianto seemed to need more than usual each time he had to recover from his powers, when he finally woke up they came to the silent agreement that these new abilities had better to be forgotten until they were deemed absolutely necessary.

Despite agreeing on this as a general rule, Jack and Ianto dad different opinion on what was mandatory and what wasn't. At first the Captain wasn't sure he was willing to let Ianto use his powers to extend his own life, but it took him only one night together, free to make love lazily and without time limits again, to make him capitulate and admit that he was willing to not exclude the possibility.

No matter how much difficult it was allow Ianto to share his destiny and see whoever he loved die in front of his eyes, Jack realized soon that going back to what had become their routine after Ianto's death was not an option anymore. Not if they could avert it.

Still, for everything else, they agreed that Ianto would simply use his normal human abilities, despite the chance in his hands to become an almighty god. Luckily, thinking about his previous master's death was a good deterrent for whenever he felt like he could do more.

Or at least so he hoped.

When the time came to say goodbye to their new friends though, they still had not decided where to go from there. All the villagers they had known in that short period of time had promised to meet them right before their departure, but while they were waiting for everyone to gather, Jack kept staring at his VM, unable to actually make a decision about what digits he wanted to enter.

"Ianto, I know we already talked about it yesterday, but I changed my mind again. I don't think we should go back to Earth just now"

"Why? You want me to see the stars?" Ianto teased, easily accepting Jack's insecurities. "I can see them from Earth too, you know?"

"It's not that, but... You've got this new power within you and you can't use it well. Maybe you should practice in a danger-free planet, where you can relax without any risk to use it improperly..."

Jack was right and, truth to be told, it had been Ianto's very same thought when he had suggested delaying their return to Earth, still this wasn't the reason he wanted to hear from his boyfriend, so he simply huffed in displeasure.

"And here I thought you wanted to play romantic…"

"I wouldn't mind that" Jack teased him. "I know a planet that might just be perfect. There are loads of facilities we could take advantage of... And I'm not talking about your training."

"Really. And with what money?"

"Don't worry, I have my resources"

Their friends eventually reached them and the discussion died there, for a short moment forgotten amongst all the chaos and the chatter. When they finally got ready to go, as Jack was settling the coordinates right, however Ianto simply let his hand hover over the VM, making all the numbers flicker wildly.

"What have you done?"

"Randomizator." Ianto explained to a completely confused Jack as wicked grin plastered all over his face as he pressed the start button by himself. "Show me the stars, Jack. Shining shimmering and splendid!"

And no matter how much all of this pleased and worried Jack, they both disappeared into thin air, ready to explore the galaxies unknown.

They didn't have a sports car, but as long as they were together Jack knew that everything would be fine, even though their happily ever after stretched further away than any other people's in both heaven and earth.

* * *

***Heaven & Earth - The end***


End file.
